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A BoomanTribune exclusive
investigative
project
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By Martin
Longman (BooMan) and SusanHu (SusanHu)
Reprinted at Daily Kos and MyDD
These are dark times. Our government has engaged in acts so vile, so
inhumane, and so shameful, that we cannot allow the truth to be
published without it causing an international crisis.
When Newsweek
published an account that “interrogators, in an attempt to rattle
suspects, flushed a Qur’an down a toilet and led a detainee around with
a collar and dog leash”, they were not breaking any news.
Accounts of
this sort have been in the public square for over two years (see
below).
The only novelty to Newsweek’s report was that a ‘senior U.S.
government official’, who was knowledgeable about Southern Command’s
investigation into Gitmo abuse, verified it. This anonymous source has
since backtracked on a very specific aspect of the story.
source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly
recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur’an,
including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking
anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced
in the SouthCom report.
Newsweek: Evan Thomas
The source is no longer sure that he read accounts of Qur’anic
desecration in the Southern Command report. But he still remembers
reading about Qur’anic desecration. It would be interesting to know
whether the source read those ‘investigative reports’ in other official
government documents, or in the variety of newspapers and magazines
that have reported on this issue since 2002.
It’s not hard to find these accounts. A simple Google search will
do.
But I took the extra step today of contacting an attorney that is
representing over ten Guantánamo detainees. He works for a prominent,
private, Washington, D.C. law firm, and has visited Guantánamo four
times since late last year. All of his clients share the same
nationality and, partly for this reason, all of his clients have been
kept in complete isolation from each other.
Seeing his clients is not easy. First of all, it requires a week’s stay
in barracks to meet with all his clients for a sufficient amount of
time. The barracks are located on the other side of the base from the
camps, and the two and half-hour transit time involves a bus and a
ferry.
He must prepare, in advance, a list of which clients he wishes
to see, and in what order. Once, he was told that the guards could not
locate one of his clients.
He meets with his clients one-by-one, never in groups. The detainees
have had no contact with each other, and no opportunity to collaborate
on false allegations of abuse.
I asked him, “Have you heard any
accounts of Qur’anic desecration?”
He replied, “Yes, two detainees
told me completely independently that they had witnessed a Qur’an being
thrown in the toilet. Another told me that he had witnessed a Qur’an
being stomped on. And another told me he had witnessed a Qur’an being
urinated on.”
He continued, “Most disturbances, like hunger strikes, have been over
religious issues, like non-Muslims handling the Koran.” I asked how the
guards were supposed to supply Qur’ans to the detainees without
handling them? He told me that the Muslim chaplains could provide this
service, but there were fewer and fewer chaplains available.
I am aware that anonymous sources are part of the controversy over the
Newsweek article, so I called Tina Foster of the Counsel for the Center
for Constitutional Rights’ Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative.
The GGJI is a new litigation and advocacy project, introduced on April
12, 2005, “dedicated to challenging rendition, arbitrary detention, and
interrogation under torture committed as part of the United States’
global ‘war on terror'”.
Ms. Foster’s group is co-counsel for many
of the Guantánamo detainees, and they have a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the
allegations coming out of Gitmo. I asked her if she had heard of
reports of Qur’anic desecration. She replied, “It’s one of a panoply of
abuses that have occurred at Guantánamo, reported over and over again,
both to counsel and by releasees.”
I asked her what she thought of
the allegations made in the Newsweek article. She told me, “They have
been repeatedly confirmed. We have heard allegations of ‘tossing’ based
on religious beliefs, shaving of beards, prisoners being made to wear
short pants, or having their pants taken away from them, not having the
proper clothes given to them that are appropriate for prayer.”
Both sources took the same path in our conversations. First they
confirmed that there were multiple independent allegations of Qur’anic
desecration coming from Gitmo detainees; then they framed this outrage
in the context of a more general program of religious humiliation.
My anonymous source told me that his clients were punished by the loss
of showering privileges, the withholding of soap, and the removal of
water basins used for ablution.
He also claimed his firm tried to provide their clients with books on
Tafsîr. Tafsîr, or ‘exegesis’, of the Qur’ân is considered the most
important ‘science’ for Muslims.
matters concerning the Islamic way of life are connected to it in one
sense or another since the right application of Islam is based on
proper understanding of the guidance from Allah. Without tafsîr there
would be no right understanding of various passages of the
Qur’ân.”
Islamic Awareness.
The government refused,
without explanation, to allow books on Tafsîr. I asked Ms. Foster
about this and she told me, “As a general matter it has been extremely
difficult to get them reading materials, particularly in their own
language.”
The D.C. lawyer also alleged that one of the Administrative Review Board’s criteria for deeming a
detainee too dangerous to release was whether or not they prayed in
their cell. You pray, you stay.
[As an aside, he also mentioned that “excessive anti-Bush sentiments” were considered grounds for denying release.]
Asked about this, Ms. Foster was so
skeptical about the ARB’s that she questioned whether they use “any
rational criteria at all.”
Taking all of this into consideration, how should we view Newsweek and
their anonymous source? How should we view the rhetoric coming from the
Pentagon and the right-wing blogosphere?
bitch said.”
-Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence DiRita
on its desks. Isikoff should cough up his source.”
–Michelle
Malkin
Why would they say this?
Because on May 6th, Pakistan’s equivalent
of Michael Jordan, star cricket player Imran Khan, held a press
conference:
(dated May 9), Khan read a report that U.S. interrogators at Guantánamo
prison had placed the Qur’an on toilet seats and even flushed one.
“This is what the U.S. is doing,” exclaimed Khan, “desecrating the
Qur’an.” His remarks, as well as the outraged comments of Muslim
clerics and Pakistani government officials, were picked up on local
radio and played throughout neighboring Afghanistan. Radical Islamic
foes of the U.S.-friendly regime of Hamid Karzai quickly exploited
local discontent with a poor economy and the continued presence of U.S.
forces, and riots began breaking out last week.
Newsweek:
Evan Thomas
Imran Khan was incensed that America has been desecrating the Qur’an.
The Newsweek piece was confirmation. The government was admitting what
had long been alleged. Riots ensued. People were killed. President
Pervez Musharraf and his prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, demanded an
investigation. Saudi Arabia expressed concern. Yemen denounced us. The
Organization of the Islamic Conference complained. The Arab League
demanded an apology. Demonstrations broke out in Palestine, Indonesia,
and elsewhere. The sudden fury of Muslims surprised Washington.
Dr. Rice’s reaction is probably more telling than she intended:
secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said as she travelled home from
Iraq.
Mr. Rumsfeld’s reaction is just chilling:
defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Capitol Hill. “People need to
be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful
about what they do.”
Scotsman
To Dr. Rice I say, “What’s appalling is that this story is out there
to tell.” To Mr Rumsfeld I say, “I am fully aware that what I
say may wind up causing the deaths of angry protestors, damaging
national security, endangering our troops, and destabilizing the
governments of U.S. allies. But this is your fault.”
I have weighed long and hard whether I should write this article. I
know that providing evidence that the U.S. Government and the
mainstream media are engaged in a dishonest effort at damage control is
going to undermine our ability to put a lid on Muslim outrage. But the
truth is already out there.
This effort to put our mistreatment of
Muslims and our disrespect for Islam back in Pandora’s Box is not going
to work. Any short-term damage the truth will do, will be overwhelmed
by the long-term damage of allowing this abuse and disrespect to
continue.
The world needs to know that most Americans, and certainly
the vast majority of people on the left, do not support these policies.
We don’t care whether the government is ready to admit the truth and
accept the consequences. We are speaking out.
The Bush administration has lost all its credibility. They lost it by
lying about the threat presented by Saddam Hussein. They lost it by
fabricating evidence about weapons of mass destruction. They lost it by
cynically pretending to be interested in a diplomatic solution to
Iraq’s non-compliance with U.N. resolutions, when the Downing Street
Minutes show the administration was bent on war from the beginning.
They lost it at Abu Ghraib. They lost it by stating that the Geneva
Conventions do not apply to prisoners at Guantanamo. They lost it by
farming torture out to our sworn enemy, Syria, and the human rights
nadir of Uzbekistan.
No amount of spin is going to repair the damage
done to America’s image and legacy. Only the resignation of the entire
administration could even begin to accomplish that task.
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Below is a comprehensive list of published allegations of Qur’anic
desecration that pre-date the Newsweek article with the exception of
citations 1, 10, and 11:
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1. The New York Times, May 17, 2005, “Newsweek Says It Is Retracting Koran Report“:
confirmed to The New York Times an account given in an interview by a
former Kuwaiti detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, who said that
mishandling of the Koran once led to a major hunger strike. The strike
ended only after a senior officer expressed regret over the camp’s
loudspeaker system, which was simultaneously translated by linguists at
the end of each cell block, the former interrogator said.
In that case, the accusations were of copies of the Koran being tossed
on the floor in a pile and treated roughly, but there was no assertion
that any had been put in the toilet.
Erik Saar, a co-author of the book “Inside the Wire” and an Arabic
language translator at Guantánamo from January to June 2003, said in an
interview Monday that while he “never saw anything along the lines of a
Koran being flushed down a toilet,” the issue of how guards and
interrogators handled the book was a chronic problem. … [C]ommanders
tried to deal with detainees’ sensitivity about the Koran in several
ways, including enlisting some of the Muslims working for the military
as translators to handle the books during inspections, so that
nonbelievers would not touch the books. But that was not always done,
he said, and there was no regular policy. The issue “created friction
and problems all the time,” he said.
2. From Carl Conetta,
Project on Defense Alternatives, by e-mail:
thrown into a pile and stepped on) prompted a hunger strike among
Guantanamo detainees in March 2002. Regarding this, the New York Times
in a 1 May 2005 article interviewed a former detainee, Nasser Nijer
Naser al-Mutairi, who said the protest ended with a senior officer
delivering an apology to the entire camp. And the Times reports: “A
former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with The Times,
confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public
expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans.” (Neil A. Lewis
and Eric Schmitt, “Inquiry Finds Abuses at Guantanamo Bay,” New
York Times, 1 May 2005, p. 35.)
The hunger strike and apology story is also confirmed by another former
detainee, Shafiq Rasul, interviewed by the UK Guardian in 2003 (James
Meek, “The
people the law forgot,” The Guardian, 3 December 2003, p. 1.) It
was also confirmed by former prisoner Jamal al-Harith in an interview
with the Daily Mirror (Rosa Prince and Gary Jones, “My
Hell in Camp X-ray World Exclusive,” Daily Mirror, 12 March
2004).
3. From Carl Conetta,
Project on Defense Alternatives, by e-mail:
Iqbal, a former Guatanamo detainee who was released to British custody
in March 2004 and subsequently freed without charge:
“The behaviour of the guards towards our religious practices as well as
the Koran was also, in my view, designed to cause us as much distress
as possible. They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and
generally disrespect it.” (Center for Constitution Rights, Detention in
Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, (4 August 2004, deposition available at
ccr-ny.org)
4. Tarek Derghoul, another of the British detainees, similarly cites
instances of Koran desecration in an interview with Cageprisoners.com.
5. Desecration of the Koran was also mentioned by former Guantanamo
detainee Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost and reported by the BBC in early May
2005. (Haroon Rashid, “Ex-inmates
share Guantanamo ordeal,” 2 May 2005).
6. “Lawyers allege abuse of 12 at Guantanamo,” The
Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 20, 2005: Some detainees complained of
religious humiliation, saying guards had defaced their copies of the
Koran and, in one case, had thrown it in a toilet, said Kristine Huskey
[an attorney in Washington, D.C.], who interviewed clients late last
month. Others said that pills were hidden in their food and that people
came to their cells claiming to be their attorneys, to gain
information.
7. From the Center for Constitutional Rights,
New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human
Rights Watch report:
initially they didn’t get a Koran. When the Korans were provided, they
were kicked and thrown about by the guards and on occasion thrown in
the buckets used for the toilets. This kept happening. When it happened
it was always said to be an accident but it was a recurrent theme
8. From the Center for Constitutional Rights,
New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human
Rights Watch report:
because initially we did not know the direction to pray, but also given
that we couldn’t move and the harassment from the guards, it was simply
not feasible. The behaviour of the guards towards our religious
practices as well as the Koran was also, in my view, designed to cause
us as much distress as possible. They would kick the Koran, throw it
into the toilet and generally disrespect it. It is clear to me that the
conditions in our cells and our general treatment were designed by the
officers in charge of the interrogation process to “soften us up”’.
9. From the Center for Constitutional Rights,
New York City, NY and linked as a footnote in a Human
Rights Watch report:
Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay,” released publicly on August 4, 2004,
para. 72, 74, available online at:
http://www.ccr-
ny.org/v2/reports/docs/
Gitmo=compositestatementFINAL23july04.pdf,
accessed on August
19, 2004. The disrespect of the Koran by guards at Camp X-Ray was one
of the factors prompting a hunger strike. Ibid., para. 111-117.
10. The Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2005, “Newsweek Says
It Is Retracting Koran Report“:
journalist familiar with the reporting on the story agreed with his
editor’s regrets Monday, but said it appeared the administration was
seizing on the error to minimize the abuse allegations.
“The issue of how prisoners are treated at Guantanamo has not gone
away,” said the journalist, who asked not to be named. “Now they want
to deflect that by talking about how irresponsible Newsweek magazine
was.”
[………………….]
The Newsweek editor noted that
earlier news accounts reported desecration of the Quran, as well. “For
some reason,” he added, “at this particular time, ours was the match
that lit a fire.”
11. Raw Story, May 16, 2005, “Newsweek report on Quran matches many
earlier accounts“:
assertions, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo
published by Newsweek May 6 are common among ex-prisoners and have been
widely reported outside the United States, RAW STORY has learned. …
12. From the Complaint, Rasul v. Rumsfeld, filed
October 27, 2004:
pray were banned or interrupted. Plaintiffs were never given prayer
mats and did not initially receive copies of the Koran. Korans were
provided to them after approximately a month. On one occasion, a guard
in Plaintiff Ahmed’s cellblock noticed a copy of the Koran on the floor
and kicked it. On another occasion, a guard threw a copy of the Koran
in a toilet bucket. Detainees, including Plaintiffs, were also at times
prevented from calling out the call to prayer, with American soldiers
either silencing the person who was issuing the prayer call or playing
loud music to drown out the call to prayer. This was part of a
continuing pattern of disrespect and contempt for Plaintiffs religious
beliefs and practices.
13. Corrente.blogspot.com
provides numerous press citations, without links, of the use of
desecration of the Koran to humiliate prisoners. For example, Corrente
cites “BBC Monitoring International Reports, June 26, 2004, RUSSIAN TV
INTERVIEWS FREED GUANTANAMO PRISONERS… bucket instead of a toilet.
People were in cells, … … floor. (Vahitov) They tore the Koran to
pieces in front of us, threw it into the toilet.”